Harold Dreams
by Haiza Tyri
Summary: A broken man in a hospital bed dreams of a life of power and meaning. Completely AU.
1. The Broken Man

_The Broken Man_

A little broken man lies in the hospital bed. He's bandaged from neck to waist, immobile, with new pins in his neck and back. He'll never jog again, never sit down to his work again without pain. For five days he has been lying with his large eyes fixed on the ceiling, but he's not seeing it. He's in a coma.

The only person who ever visits him is the wealthy businessman-programmer Nathan Ingram, who is the one who paid for the private room, the specialist in spinal injuries, the private nurse.

"He must be a good friend," the nurse had said at the beginning, and Ingram gave her a surprised look.

"No, actually. I've hardly ever even spoken to him. He's my employee. This was all my fault. He got caught up in something that should never have been his project. He was totally innocent—he didn't even know what he was working on. But they targeted him anyway, instead of me. It should be me."

She thinks now that it was a relief for him to finally say these things to someone. He has visited his little programmer called Harold Wren every day, always expecting him to be awake when he sees the open eyes. She wonders if he is dreaming behind those big grey eyes.


	2. Harold Dreams

_Harold Dreams_

_When Harold meets John Reese, it's like meeting the man he's always wanted to be, the alter-ego he's always wished he could be. Tall, handsome, strong, quick, a man of action, self-assured, a man who can take down an enemy with a single blow from his fist. His alter-ego becomes his friend. His only friend. He likes that._

_ Harold is the only one who can interpret the Machine. He's the one who knows what is going on. No one knows he exists, but he's more powerful than anyone can imagine. He likes that, too._

_ Harold and John have been rescuing people. Heroes, hidden and mysterious, like the comic books he used to read as a child. He likes that._

_ There's a sweet young doctor who wants to kill a man. They stop her. There's a young boy who's been kidnapped by Mafia. They rescue him. John gets shot. Harold rescues him. There's a girl being harassed by a stalker. Harold pokes him in the eyes, and John beats him up with his crutches. They rescue a baby. They find a dog. Harold is intrigued by a hacker. She kidnaps him. John rescues him. Harold launches himself out of his wheelchair to save a man from being shot. He lies hurting and immobile on the cold floor and thinks maybe he can be a man of action, when he needs to be._


	3. The Truth

_The Truth_

Harold gives a sudden jerk in his bed and groans, the first sound he's made. Ingram starts up and stares at him and finds him staring back.

"Harold?"

"Nathan—wha—?"

Ingram shouts out the door, and the nurse comes running. She's a young, sweet, talented girl named Megan. After the hubbub of doctors and examinations has died down, Ingram returns to Harold's room. The little man stares at him again.

"Am I dead?"

"No, Harold."

"But you're dead, Nathan."

In their three or four brief interactions, Harold has never called him Nathan. As a proper employee to his superior, he has only ever called him Mr. Ingram.

"I'm dreaming, then. Did Root shoot me? Where's John?"

"You weren't shot, Harold. You were in an explosion. Do you remember?"

"An explosion? At the train station? Is John dead, Nathan?"

"I don't know who John is, Harold. There was no train station. It was in your office."

Horror crosses Harold's face. "My library? Was it Root? No one knows about the library except her."

"Harold, lie still. I don't know what you mean. You don't work in a library. You work for me, in my IT department. Some people were trying to destroy something I built, and they got you instead."

"The Machine, right. Someone found out I was the one who actually built it, but Root murdered him."

Ingram stares at him. "Harold, you didn't build my Machine. I built it. You worked on some of the minor programming."

Harold isn't listening. "Anyway, you're already dead, Nathan. They got you in 2010, I'm afraid."

"It's 2009."

"No, it's 2012."

"Harold, listen to me carefully. You've been in a coma for nearly a week. You've been dreaming, I think. Very vividly, it looks like."

Harold closes his eyes wearily. "Root, if this is another one of your plots, I'm not falling for it."

"Harold—"

Harold won't believe him.


	4. Worth Living For

_Worth Living For_

Harold has been sitting in a wheelchair and staring out of a window for days now. He won't do his physical therapy. All he does is think about what he lost. The fact that it was all his own brain means nothing. For three years he had a different life in which he was rich, powerful, hidden from the world, brilliant, heroic, and a friend. He even owned a library, for goodness sake! He lived every moment of three vivid years, and now it's still difficult to sort out what was dream and what wasn't. He still expects every footstep outside to be Reese, the best part of the whole dream, the cruelest figment of his imagination, the person he wanted to be who became his friend instead. Instead of who he was, a meek, quiet, uninteresting, funny-looking minor programmer. Not even Nathan Ingram's friend, just his employee. He remembers years of friendship with the man, being uncle to his son. But Ingram doesn't have a son, and Harold doesn't have a friend. No John, no Nathan, no—

Footsteps behind him. The little nurse named Megan, whom with his typical delusions of grandeur he had dreamed into a talented young doctor to be rescued from herself, enters the room.

"Harold, you have a visitor."

"Tell Nathan I don't want to see him."

"It's not Nathan."

He stares out of the window, not caring. But a swift figure moves around the bed and kneels before his wheelchair, and slender white hands take his small, almost pudgy ones. Red hair appears before his sun-dazzled eyes, a pale, lightly-freckled face, a beautiful, trembling smile.

"Oh, Harold, thank God. Harold, I've been so worried. You just disappeared. I realized I didn't know where you lived, where you worked. I've been crazy."

He stares at her and dares to lift his hand to her cheek. "Grace…?"

He'd thought she was all part of the dream. He remembers how in his dream they were engaged, and he disappeared to protect her. In real life he'd never even had the courage to ask her out, he remembers now, even though he knew she wanted him to. It was just endless cups of tea in a coffee shop halfway between their respective homes. But here she is, the one thing he denied himself in that dream where he was a much less pathetic man than he really is, and her eyes are full of tears.

"Did you really worry?" he asks.

The tears spill over. "I was afraid you were dead in an alley somewhere."

"I've been wishing I was… But maybe I don't wish it anymore." Maybe there is actually something in real life that is better than what he'd had in the dream. He puts his finger under her chin, but since he can't lean forward, she is the one who rises and leans forward and kisses him softly and long on the lips.


End file.
